Associated PressIn this April 11, 2011, file photo, Elizabeth Warren, then-assistant to the President, speaks during a summit on consumer protection by the National Association of Attorneys General in Charlotte, N.C. Warren has since become the chief Democratic rival to Republican Sen. Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race.

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"I'm Native American myself, and I don't want her, period,” said Nancy Dugre, 57, an unaffiliated voter and college professor from Longmeadow. But, Dugre said, her antipathy for Warren is not because of questions over whether Warren used her alleged Native American heritage to advance her career as a law professor.

“It has nothing to do with that,” Dugre said. “I tend to vote for the candidate that has the best interests of all the people in mind and that isn't her. This is a non-issue and I want to see them get back to the real issues."

Reporters from The Republican and MassLive.com interviewed 24 voters from around the state about the controversy over Warren’s Native American ancestry. Responses broke down largely along party lines: Republicans said Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, was wrong to list her alleged Native American ancestry in law directories and elsewhere during her time at Harvard.

Democrats said the issue is an irrelevant diversion from Warren's views. However, the biggest voting bloc in Massachusetts – and one that will be key to winning the election – is voters who are unaffiliated with any party. Among unaffiliated voters, three-quarters said the issue did not bother them, while one-quarter said it did.

Respondents included 12 unaffiliated voters (including one who would not provide an affiliation), nine Democrats and three Republicans – numbers that are proportional to the number of registered voters in each party statewide.

At the core of the issue is whether Warren’s ancestry helped her get a position at Harvard Law School through affirmative action. Rosalind Davidson, 85, an unaffiliated voter and retired teacher from Cambridge, said she does not believe Warren benefited from listing her heritage. “She is so competent she certainly doesn’t need anything to verify her ability as a professor and lawyer,” Davidson said. “They were just hunting for something.” Davidson said the truth about Warren’s ancestry doesn’t matter to her. “Maybe she is (Native American), ok, fine. Maybe she isn’t, ok, fine.”

Billy McBride, assistant athletic director at Amherst College, who lives in Holyoke and would not give his party affiliation, said even the question about whether Warren got a career boost should not be an issue. “It is who she is,” McBride said. “We are all a part of something, so why can't that something lend to her success?"

Other unaffiliated voters, however, believe the issue speaks to Warren’s integrity.

“It tells me something about her credibility,” said Michael Mulyk, 61, a building superintendent who lives in Dorchester. Mulyk is unaffiliated and leaning toward Brown. “If she wasn’t really Native American and she used that as a stepping stone to get an advantage, I don’t think it’s right,” he said. Mulyk said it seems like Warren was taking advantage of the system to get something she was not entitled to.

Sean Percy, 46, an unaffiliated voter and Brown supporter who lives in Plymouth and works for the county sheriff’s department, said, “I think it’s despicable that she used it. That’s how she got her job. She’s not a Native American Indian.”

The most common response from unaffiliated voters was that Warren’s ancestry and whether Warren used it in her employment should be irrelevant. "This race should be about the issues and her qualifications for the job,” said Anthony Morisi, 27, an unaffiliated voter from Springfield. “As long as someone can perform the job, every aspect of their personal lives shouldn't be an issue."

Shahkar Fatmi, 48, an unaffiliated voter and business owner who immigrated from Iran and lives in Longmeadow, said similarly, “I want to know about the quality of her work, and whether she can unify us as a country. There are a lot of issues we share, not just a particular ethnic group, but all of us."

Michael Beetar, an unaffiliated voter from Worcester who manages equipment at a catering company, said the issue “doesn’t trouble me at all.” “I don’t care about a person’s background as long as they do a good job now,” he said, adding, “I’d do anything to get into Harvard.”

Among party-affiliated voters, the issue may have minimal impact, since it merely confirmed a choice many voters were already leaning toward making. Wendy McNally, 53, a Concord Republican, said she never liked Warren’s liberal views, though she was further turned off by seeing Warren dodging questions and “hardly being transparent” about her use of her ancestry. “I’ve never cared for her stance, but that was pretty much the icing on the cake,” McNally said.

Similarly, Richard Flavin, 54, a Democratic writer and web designer from Boston was planning to support Warren before the story broke, and the discussion of her Native American ancestry did not change his views. Flavin’s own father believed he had an ancestor who was a Blackfoot Indian, before finding out that the Indian in the family had no descendents. “Sometimes mistakes get made,” he said. “I don’t know whether she took advantage of anything. To me, it’s a non-issue.”

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